Jeff Lynne Said Tom Petty Was the ‘Coolest’ Person He Ever Met

Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne were the youngest two members of The Traveling Wilburys and could hardly believe that they had the opportunity to work with musical legends. Though they both acknowledged that working with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Bob Dylan was an incredible experience, they also admired each other. They helped each other with music and became good friends. After Petty’s death, Lynne said that the Heartbreakers singer was the “coolest” person he’d ever known.

eff Lynne and Tom Petty | Frank Micelotta/Getty Images Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty reconnected at a stoplight

After spending time with Lynne on the Heartbreakers’ tour with Dylan, Petty reconnected with him at a stoplight in Los Angeles. 

“I’d just finished doing George Harrison’s Cloud Nine,” Lynne said in the book Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes. “And I’d seen the Dylan shows in London only days before, and Tom actually stopped me on the street in Beverly Hills. He kept honking his horn and I thought, ‘Who’s that?’”

Several days later, Petty happened to walk into a restaurant where Lynne and Harrison were having lunch. Lynne helped connect Petty and Harrison, and soon the pieces were in place for the formation of The Traveling Wilburys. Lynne and Petty were the youngest members, but they held their own in the band.

Jeff Lynne praised Tom Petty after his death

Petty said that he had always admired Lynne and was grateful for the chance to work with him.

“I’d always admired Jeff so much,” Petty told GQ in 2005. “And I got to hang out with him a little bit when we were in England on the Bob Dylan tour. He’d come down with George Harrison. Jeff came out to Birmingham when we played there. And then we were in London for a week. They would come down pretty often in the afternoon and hang around till late after the gig. So I became pretty tight with him and George right away. We had a marvelous time.”

They became close friends through all their collaboration.

“We were great friends,” he said. “We had a lot of laughs together.”

Lynne agreed and said Petty’s death in 2017 was a terrible blow.

“Oh bloody hell, it was horrible,” he told The Sun. “He was the coolest guy ever … that’s what I liked about him.”

They both worked on ‘Full Moon Fever’ together

The two men worked together on Petty’s debut solo album Full Moon Fever.

“Jeff was such a genius in the studio. Just so good,” Petty said. “He made things that had been really difficult seem so easy all of a sudden. Like getting a good take. It just all came so easy with him. He taught me a lot. A lot about singing, a lot about harmony, a lot about arranging. Everything.”

They collaborated on two of Petty’s best-known songs, and Lynne said creativity flowed easily between them.

“We wrote ‘Free Fallin’ in no time together and I’m thrilled that ‘I Won’t Back Down’ has become a Hall Of Fame song. That also came quickly … nice tune and Tom sang it great. He had such a distinctive voice.”

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